[Zakeet]

Where the Jobs Aren't: 10 Doomed Industries

My List: Based on the actual experiences of countries undergoing currency collapse, as recorded by economic historians

1. Real Estate - including new home construction and real estate sales
   Home prices down more than 80 percent in real (gold price) terms, 30+ percent of market is in foreclosure (with massive legal issues threatening to tie up the market for years), another 30+ percent of market is underwater on equity basis (people can't afford to sell) with prices still plunging in real terms, a massive number of ARM's (adjustable rate mortgages) are waiting to reset as soon as interest rates inevitably increase. Expect no improvement here for at least a decade.

2. Banking
   Quantitative Easing, essentially nothing more than an outright equity infusion into the banks (i.e. a gift) and assumption of "toxic assets" (i.e. another gift), was nice while it lasted. Unfortunately for the ones pocketing record bonuses, it won't. Considering that there are more than a quadrillion dollars worth of derivative exposure (that's a thousand trillions), combined with a crumbling world economy, unbelievable exposure to normal staid portfolio entries (think real estate and central bank deposits), and worldwide unrest, there simply isn't enough economic value to bail out their sorry butts.

3. Stock Brokers / Investment Counselors
   The stock market, already diving in real terms, will crash. Fixed return debt instruments will vanish. Variable return debt instruments will be too expensive for most companies. Pensions will become worthless. Inflation and taxes will destroy the wealth of all but the very wealthy. Nobody to buy their services and nothing for customers to buy except for precious metals (which will soon be prohibitively expensive) and foreign securities (with their own set of inherent risks). No buyers; nothing to sell; no jobs.

4. University Education
   The economic benefits of most non-professional education programs has been nowhere near their cost for decades - ever since the government created a bubble through cheap student loans. That bubble will pop, endowment funds will collapse, and they will take hundreds of thousands of tenured jobs with them.

5. Lawyers
   Litigation and securities law have been the primary income producers for lawyers for years. The securities work will evaporate with the demise of the stock and bond markets. Litigation costs will soar as the real value of monetary damages crash. As a result, very few cases will remain economically viable. The very rules imposed by the profession to drag out litigation and thus drive fees higher will kill their business. Bankruptcy, criminal law and contract work will remain, but it is typically much lower profit and there will be lots of competition from lots of hungry sharks.

6. Construction
   Who can afford to build anything given market uncertainties, especially with costs soaring and margins collapsing? A few government projects, some remodeling, some demolition, little else.

7. Insurance
   How can actuaries reliably determine loss risks without a stable monetary unit? How can the industry function without an ability to forecast costs and maintain adequate reserves? Who can afford insurance anyway without a reasonable expectation of a sustained income?

8. Health Care Services
   Yeah, it's nasty work, but at least it's steady. Until now. The top end revenue producing procedures will vanish with the demise of commercial insurance and reimbursements set at unrealistically low levels by government mandates. Low end procedures can and will be done by para-professionals. People will still get sick, but there will be little profit in treating them. Fewer jobs will be there, and fewer still will want them.

9. Civil Service (excluding military and law enforcement)
   It was nice pretending to work - and getting a handsome salary and generous benefits - then retiring with a lavish pension after only 30 years. It couldn't last forever, and it won't. Total compensation will plummet in real terms because creditors will no longer be willing to lend the money to fund large numbers bureaucrats and taxpayers simply can no longer afford to pay for them. Pensions will be inflated into oblivion. The jobs will still be there - and may actually increase in number as politicians buy votes by creating "make work" jobs, but this work won't pay. With real salaries falling to maybe 20 percent of their current values, and almost no benefits, who wants this kind of garbage? Expect this the government to be an employer of last resort for only those suffering from the dreaded "Three D's Disease" - Dumb, Desperate and under Duress.

10. Mainstream Media - including dead tree rags, networks, and magazines
    These clowns are being eaten alive by falling revenues and vanishing subscribers - much of which was self-inflicted. This is a non-essential service which can be largely obtained for free. So why pay for it, especially when you're broke?

[Zakeet]

Ping to a list you might want to chew on and then try to tear up.